The Ghost Of Scrooges Yet To Come

Get Serious!

As the clock struck three, a shaft of light streamed into Ebenezer Scrooge's gloomy bed chamber, and he awoke with a start.

"The hour has come," Scrooge said to himself fearfully, "for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to visit me." Summoning his courage, he drew aside the heavy bed curtains.

"Spirit," he said, "I fear you more than any of the other - hey, wait a minute! Who are all you guys?"

To Scrooge's astonishment, a large group of people were standing in his bedroom.

"Perhaps I should introduce myself first," said one, a distinguished-looking gentleman. "My name is Reginald Owen. I am an actor, and I am going to play you, Scrooge, in a very popular 1938 M-G-M movie."

Scrooge had no idea what an M-G-M movie was, but he was too bewildered to ask.

"And these," Owen continued, gesturing at the others, "are my fellow Scrooge players. They will all portray you someday, on stage, screen, radio or TV."

"Screen? Radio? TV?" gasped Scrooge, finally finding his voice. "I don't know what on earth you're talking about. Isn't one of you the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come"?

"Not exactly. You see, we are the Ghosts of `Christmas Carols' Yet to Come."

"Say what?"

"It's like this, Mr. Scrooge: Thanks to Charles Dickens' book, `A Christmas Carol,' you are going to become one of the world's most famous fictional characters. Everybody will know your name. And everybody will also know what a grasping, covetous old sinner you were."

"I don't believe it," Scrooge snapped. "Bah!" he added, but before he could utter another syllable, the whole group chorused, "Humbug!"

"Furthermore," Owen said, "each succeeding generation will be reminded of your miserly, heartless ways by a new adaptation of your story, acted out by these fine performers. Let me introduce Lionel Barrymore, who will portray you on the radio. And this is Alastair Sim, who will star in the 1951 British version, and Albert Finney, who will do a musical version, and George C. Scott, who will play you on television.

"And here are our two newest colleagues: That's Michael Caine, who will play you in a movie with the Muppets in 1992, and the bald chap is Patrick Stewart, who'll do it on Broadway the same year."

"What about those two weird-looking ones over there?" Scrooge asked. "They look like drawings."

"That's what they are. May I introduce Mr. Magoo, one of our greatest Scrooges. And that's your namesake, Scrooge McDuck, who plays you in the Disney version."

Scrooge groaned. "Vilified and mocked for all time! Is that to be my punishment?"

"Actually, there's more," Owen said. "You also will be fair game for advertising copywriters, who will use your image incessantly to peddle their products each Christmas shopping season."

Scrooge whimpered.

"And then, the final indignity," Owen intoned. "Newspaper hacks bereft of originality will write cheesy lampoons of your story for their Christmas columns."

Scrooge let out a howl and slumped to the floor.

"Mercy, O spirit, mercy!" Scrooge cried. "Tell me these are but the shadows of things to come, that they may be changed!"

"Not a chance, Ebenezer. This is too lucrative a property. But there is yet one way you may ameliorate your fate."

"Anything. Just tell me."

"Reform now, and give the story a happy ending. Then everybody who sees a `Christmas Carol' movie will take away an image of you as good guy who eventually found the true spirit of Christmas, instead of remembering you solely as a rotten jerk."

"I will, I will!" Scrooge sobbed. "I will honor Christmas in my heart and will try to keep it always."

The company of Scrooge performers smiled at each other. And all of them declared, in unison, "God bless us, every one."